EU restrictions on imported chemicals to hit exporters

TNNNov 29, 2003, 12.55am IST

NEW DELHI: India on Friday expressed concern over the European Union's (EU) stance that downstream use of imported chemicals by the EU countries would be restricted. According to Vinay Kohli, secretary, department of chemicals and petrochemicals, "there is no denying the fact that should (this) policy be implemented, there will be an adverse impact on cost of chemicals exported from India".

Speaking at the fourth India-US business summit here, he said that EU's proposed adoption of single community patent system would, however, help increase access of Indian chemicals and pharmaceuticals products to the EU markets. The proposed REACH system (single integrated system of registration, evaluation and authorisation of chemicals) should be established as quickly as possible.

Also, the functioning of agencies such as the European Medicines Evaluation Agency should be encouraged so that the access of Indian pharma products to the EU countries would increase. The EU has recently brought out the details of a new format for marketing authorisation applications and other dossiers. Centralisation of such procedures will be useful, said Mr Kohli. Chemicals and pharmaceuticals industries together constitute 14% in value of all manufactured products in India. The production in the sector is growing at annual rate of 15.9%, with the highest growth in the polymer segment at 25%.